Appeal 2006-3236
Inter Partes Reexamination Control No. 95/000,006
1986) ("A patent applicant need not include in the specification that which is
already known to and available to the public."). Nevertheless, we find that
persons of ordinary skill in the art had sufficient skill to appreciate that the
purpose of longitudinal and transverse ridges is to provide rigidity to the tray
and that rigidity was desirable for handling purposes.4
One of ordinary skill in the art of semiconductor trays would have
been motivated to modify Brahmbhatt to include longitudinal and transverse
ridges to define the storage pockets because Murphy teaches that it was
known to use ridges to define pocket storage areas in semiconductor trays.
The teaching-suggestion-motivation is found in Murphy. One of ordinary
skill in the art would also have been motivated to modify Brahmbhatt to
include ridges because one of ordinary skill in the art would have
appreciated that the ridges are desirable to increase the stiffness of the tray.
This teaching-suggestion-motivation is found in the level of ordinary skill in
the art of one analyzing the Murphy patent.
Claim 4 recites that each ridge "has a wall surface for serving as said
first wall surface." This is a broad limitation that does not specify the exact
relationship between the first wall surface and the ridge. If Brahmbhatt is
modified to have ridges, each ridge would have to have a wall surface to
support the component. In any case, it would have been obvious to integrate
4 Patent owners may traverse this finding by an appropriate statement
as discussed in footnote 3. Of course, this would only negate the finding of
the reasons for transverse ridges, not the teaching of ridges in Murphy.
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